My students had an opportunity to draw up a poster for the Cambridge Primary School Art Show which will be on the 23rd ad 24th October – yes, just a few weeks away!!!!!

Here are the finalists!

I love the dotty lettering style on this one.

Art show poster drawing 8 2015

This one was huge and made by a beautiful pair of sisters showing off all their art skills. This photo just doesn’t do it justice.

Art show poster drawing 7 2015

More lovely lettering.

Art show poster drawing 6 2015

I love how this one has used the school logo.

Art show poster drawing 5 2015

And who doesn’t love glitter??? I certainly do! Well, I suppose Lucy, our wonderful cleaner, doesn’t like it much. And, as you can see, lot’s of it did end up on the hallway floor under where the posters were hanging on display.

Art show poster drawing 4 2015

And another with lovely lettering.

Art show poster drawing 3 2015

And how gorgeous is this parrot???

Art show poster drawing 1 2015And here is the

Drumroll please!

And the winner is, as decided by myself in conjunction with Ms Nadia Bettio, our Principal – Crystal!

Congratulations Crystal and Ms Bettio and I both thought your art show poster was amazing. And the fact that you drew ME so beautifully at the bottom of your poster was just the icing on the cake. It is a stunning drawing – well done!

Art show poster drawing 2 2015

I am looking forward to seeing your poster up around school and on the front of the art show program. And, apparently, your poster is going to be put on a giant sized board at the front of our school – whoo hoo1

I’ll take some extra photos and upload them when I get the chance! Well done everybody!

These stunning sunflower paintings were created by the Grade 3 students after they looked at the sunflower paintings and drawings created by Vincent Van Gogh.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 57 2015

I found some images online from Vincent Van Gogh’s sketchbooks and I always show these to the students to reinforce how important their art journals are in the process of creating their artworks.

secretmuseum_vangogh2

The students also looked at photos of sunflowers which grew outside our grade 5 classrooms earlier this year

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 15

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 11

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 8

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 3

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 4

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 6

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 10

and at photos inside a magnificent book by David Douglas Duncan titled ‘Sunflowers for Van Gogh’.

David Douglas Duncan war photographer

I was lucky to stumble across this lovely book for $3 at the Salvation

cover sunflowers for van gogh

Army Opportunity Shop in Werribee. What a find! The author and photographer, David Douglas Duncan, fell in love with Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings and travelled to France to create a book devoted to the fields of sunflowers in France. I often find fantastic art books on the bookshelves of Op Shops and they are always really cheap! Op Shopping is one of my favourite pastimes as you just never know what you might stumble upon! The students loved looking through this book and it was out, on their work tables, throughout the creation of these wonderful artworks. They were fascinated by the variety of the sunflowers and that they were so different to the sunflowers that grew in our school garden beds.

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 14

As you can see the grade 3 students spent many, many weeks on these art works and they are, rightfully, very pleased with them.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 60 2015

The students started by doing a 10 minute pencil draft in their journals of 4 different sunflowers – front view, side view, dying with petals dropping, not yet open.

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 72

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 70

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 68

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 67

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 75

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 83

All the students found these 4 views challenging but were willing to give it a go in their journal. They then bought their journal to me for a quick one on one chat about their drawings, full of praise, of course, and directed specifically at their ability level – differentiation!

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 94

They then drew a vase of sunflowers 10 minute pencil draft. And again bought this to me for a brief chat. Most children drew their sunflowers in the vase facing in different directions (hooray!) as the brief practice of the four views freed them up to do this. I did not make any direct references to how they were to draw their vase in their journal, or that they were to include the four views from their previous drawing. It was all learning by doing – and isn’t that the best kind of learning!

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 90

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 89

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 88

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 85

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 81

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 76

So that is 2 steps before they could even commence painting!

The students commenced by drawing a faint pencil line at about a third of the way up from the bottom of the paper. This gave them a line between the tabletop and the wall. This was suggested by a student who pointed out that Vincent had given his flower vase somewhere to sit by creating a table top rather than the vase just finishing at the bottom of the painting – hooray, hooray for improved observational skills! There was a huge variety in the colours used and some children created fancy tablecloths while others decorated the background wall. Most students painted their background with dry block paints giving it a wishy washy watercolour appearance.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 59 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 47 2015

I usually write up a basic framework to create the art work during discussion with my first class at that grade level. I then revise and add to the framework through discussion with the other grades. All students are well aware that it is only a guideline and they are free to pursue their own ideas throughout the process. This allows the students to work independently, with a reference up the front if they need it, as they work their way back and forth, stopping and starting, between parts of the complex work. I scribble in alternatives at each step, sometimes as they appear, and make sure the materials are available on the resource table, to aid the students independence.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 48 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 19 2015

The next step was the sunflower stems. Most students chose to print the stems onto the background using cardboard scraps. Again, this created a huge variety of different looking stems.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 14 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 3 2015

They then painted the sunflowers carefully, most students leaving one stem without a head. Most students chose to paint their sunflowers using basic school acrylic paint. This accentuated the difference between the wishy washy background walls and the stark, bright, solid colours of the sunflowers.

which is created by Zart Art in Box Hill, Victoria, Australia as an alternative to Model Magic. My students have used both successfully. We found, as the weeks marched on, and some students had not created their Model Magic flowers, that it worked just as well when we started cutting corners to get finished. It was just as successful if you glued the flower on as soon as you made it, rather than wait for it to air dry, and you could paint it before it air dried as well.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 64 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 13 2015

To finish their amazing work of art the students cut and decorated a vase and made sure it was big enough to cover the stems! This was an hilarious learning adventure all on it’s own. I showed the students how to fold a kinder square in half, draw half a vase on one side, cut it out and get a whole vase. The shocked faces when their vase was way too thin or better still, in two separate pieces, as they had drawn their vase along the wrong side of the folded paper, were priceless! I am always pointing out to the students that mistakes are part of their learning so it was fantastic to watch them fiddling with the two sad, separate pieces of their vase, to figure out where they went wrong, so they wouldn’t do it again.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 45 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 46 2015

It was a very long, involved process from start to finish for this work, with many stops and starts in between, as work had to dry completely between many of the steps.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 44 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 43 2015

All the grade 3 students worked brilliantly and moved independently onto different parts of the work while waiting for other bits to dry.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 15 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 14 2015

I am very proud of how committed the grade 3 students are to their art and how well they used their art time!!!

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 23 2015

And I’m sure you will agree that these are stunning artworks, some of which took 8 sessions to complete. All students, regardless of the level of their ability, were proud of their achievements.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 16 2015

And they made a gorgeous display. I can’t wait to put them all up at the art show! The Cambridge Primary School Art Show is on the 23rd and 24th October!!! Just 4 weeks away – aaaggghhhhh!

These interesting, amusing parodies of Mona Lisa were created by the Grade 5 students after they looked at several examples.

We looked at a large print of the Mona Lisa and discussed what the students knew about the painting.

The Mona Lisa is one of the most well known images in the whole world

Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa between 1503 and 1506 although some art scholars believe he worked on the painting as late as 1517

The painting is believed to be of Lisa Gheradini who was the wife of rich merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

King Francis I of France acquired the painting and it remains the property of the people of France and is on permanent display at the famous LOUVRE museum in Paris.

The grade 5 students also watched several, funny Sesame St videos, which were parodies of popular songs.

Then we discussed what a parody was and watched a few music parodies so the students could get a handle on the concept. The obvious first place to look was Sesame St as almost every episode has some form of musical parody. The students had a good giggle at these.

Once the students had an understanding of what a parody is they drew a 5-10 minute draft, in pencil, in their Art journal. The students then drew their parody on A4 cartridge paper and most used a photocopied face and hands of the Mona Lisa to complete their parody although this was their choice to use the photocopy or not.

grade 5 mona lisa parody drawing 2015 1

The students then chose a complimentary background paper to form a frame around their work and decorated it to match the theme of their drawing.

grade 5 mona lisa parody drawing 2015 2

grade 5 mona lisa parody drawing 2015 28

Here she is a rock star on stage.

I was astounded with the range of situations that poor old Mona Lisa could be put into!

grade 5 mona lisa parody drawing 2015 3

grade 5 mona lisa parody drawing 2015 27

Here she is riding a dragon!

Some of the ways the frames were decorated to match the theme were very clever.

grade 5 mona lisa parody drawing 2015 29

Here she is a wheelchair basketball player!

I hope you have enjoyed looking at these Mona Lisa parodies and the grade 5 students would certainly appreciate your comments.

We started off by looking at several David Hockney swimming pool paintings, from the 1960s, on the projector screen. I use MY PINTEREST BOARDS to store and then display images on the projector so I don’t have to clog up my laptop with squillions of art images.

The discussion was loud and vigorous with the students pointing out that it was interesting to choose that splash moment to paint rather than the person on the end of the board or in the middle of the dive, etc.

And in each grade the comment was made that the swimmer in this painting looked like he was wearing a nappy!?! Oh the highs and lows of discussions with Grade 3!!! This painting was excellent for talking about the differences between a swimming/floating body and a standing/walking body. I don’t think that was why he painted it but – Thank you, David Hockney!

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 18

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 25

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 63

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 62

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 61

So as I have been gradually introducing the students to using an art journal this year they had to start by doing a quick drawing, 5 – 10 minutes only, in pencil, in their journal, of themselves as a floating/swimming body. This was then brought to me for a quick personal discussion during which I write or draw a few prompts/praises on their draft. These are directly related to their drawings, at their ability level, and I ask that they try to incorporate the ideas generated from our short, personal discussion into their ‘good copy’. Yes, folks, DIFFERENTIATION is alive and well in this Visual Arts classroom!!!

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 6

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 60

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 59

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 58

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 56

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 55

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 53

The first time I did this in their book was hilarious. They were all horrified that I was writing on top of their drawing but they now all have a much more secure idea of what a rough draft is and don’t feel so precious about every rough drawing any more.

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 35

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 66

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 11

Once the students had started their drawing /painting on A3 cartridge paper I quickly called a halt as most were using grey lead pencil and drawing a teeny tiny swimming version of themselves. What happened to filling the space with their body? So the grey lead pencils were put away as soon as their draft was finished and the students moved bravely, straight onto using the oil pastels, to create their swimmer. Ahhh, much better!

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 2

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting dra

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 37

Once their swimmer drawing was finished they tackled the challenge of pool water reflection lines using white oil pastel.

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 12

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 21

The students then painted on the water using dry block poster paint with the paint magically resisting the oil in the pastels!!! Yes, I know, sometimes the old techniques are the best ones for the job!

POSITIVES:

Rich, engaging activity

fantastic discussion

lots of students came into the art room talking about the David Hockney images they had looked up on Pinterest or Google images after discussing this with their family about what they were doing

comparing rough drafts with final pieces of work to demonstrate the changes and improvements in their final piece

all students were very proud of their work, regardless of their ability level

they make a fantastic display!

NEGATIVES

I don’t think there were any!!!

You can see more David Hockney style swimmers inspired, like me, by USE YOUR COLOURED PENCILS here in these links

I was looking for a drawing activity for my grade 6 at the start of the year and found this on my pinterest board op art that I had pinned ages ago.

Thank you to We Heart Art who had a brilliant step by step procedure on their blog. It was a fantastic activity as it required few materials and soon had the students totally absorbed in their work.

I must admit to being horrified at the grade 6 students poor ruler skills so was glad to provide them with this much needed practice!

After looking at this set of samples all agreed that they would like to put themselves in the illusion, so when they were tired of ruling and colouring neatly they used their ipads to take photos of each other falling into what we all thought looked like a mysterious portal to somewhere else.

The photos were then to be emailed to me so I could have them printed off for their next art session. It was supposed to be so simple but the amount of students that did not have their email set up and running on their ipad was ridiculous. I also pointed out to the students that as they have their ipads all the time they could take their photo and send it to me any time rather than waste their art session doing this bit. A few students did this and emailed me their photos from home but most forgot about it until their next Visual Arts session.

I am certainly not the type of Visual Arts teacher that spoon feeds her students so they were responsible for getting their photo to me for printing. It became plainly obvious fairly quickly that there were lots of students who had forgotten all about getting their email settings sorted out and/or taking their photos in their own time. I absolutely refuse to fuss over students who don’t fulfill a simple requirement in a timely manner. Learning to use your one hour of art time well is part of being a responsible student but not having had this particular cohort of students for a long time ( I have taught Prep – 3 the last few years) it was clear I was going to have to spend a lot of time pushing them to become more responsible for their own learning.

They did get there in the end and all were proud of their finished pieces which made an amusing display in the main hallway!

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 20

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 18

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 8

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 10

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 16

Grade 6 optical illusion 2015 Look out Georgia

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 17

Grade 6 optical illusion drawing look out 2015 19

Positives:

Fantastic activity for the start of the year

needs little in the way of materials

many interesting discussions about colour, shading, line etc

students very supportive and encouraging of each others ideas

hilarious acting in the photos

practicing ruling lines

practicing cutting tricky shapes

practicing terrible colouring skills!

Negatives:

Some students were incredibly sssllllooooowwwwww to get this finished!

internet, email, etc never work when you want them to

many beautifully drawn backgrounds without photos to finish them off due to students not taking responsibility to get this bit done

Thanks for looking and I’m sure the grade 6 students would love it if you left them a comment!

Here are some more photos from the Cambridge Primary School Art Show last year.

They sort of show how I set the display boards up in what we call the Old Gym. This was the first board they saw as they came in the door so was the obvious place to put Welcome to the Cambridge Primary School Art Show. Although it is a bit hard to see in this photo the word welcome is a photocopy of a WELCOME mat, to and the are just printed large in fancy fonts, the diamond shape is our Cambridge Primary School logo and the word show is an image I found on Google images which I enlarged on the photocopier and is sitting in the middle of the R in ART!

The visitors then turned right as the layout led them down a narrow entry – wide enough for prams, pushers and wheelchairs, of course.

View looking towards the entry – and yes. this is before we opened or I would have been crushed by the crowd!

in the photo above you can see a green rectangle. That was a trolley, camouflaged in green hessian, which had a PC with my blog running on it, for anyone to have a look at, before they walked through the Art Show. It was great to see lots of children showing the blog to their families. This is how it was set up below.

So after walking down that long tunnel the visitors turned left and saw Harmony Day kites made by grade 5 and 6 and Wound and Woven Hearts made by the Preps. These were suspended from a net slung from the climbing frame which was at right angles to the wall, utilising part of the gym structure.

This is what the visitors saw in the centre of the gym. The climbing frame with the hearts hanging from it is in the top left of this photo.

I think my son Sam climbed up a ladder to take this shot!

And he then took this shot!

There were displays on tables.

As well as the floor.

And on the right hand side I had a slideshow of more that 1000 photos of children’s work from 2013 projected up onto the gym whiteboard.

Some of our fantastic helpers sitting right at the entry/exit handing out leaflets and collecting money from sales as all Art work on display was for sale at $2 per piece! You can see some of the lovely Monet bridges and lily ponds behind them.

I really had no idea as to how I was going to set up the boards until they got there, as it was the first time I had to organise the Art Show, but it all worked out OK.

I will certainly be hiring more boards next time though as the school numbers are still increasing and I tried to put more than one piece of work up for each child.

My plan for next year is also to have a Committee so the organisational load can be shared and I’ll add in a raffle and some other ideas which were just too difficult to attempt for my first Art Show.

They were a big hit at the Art Show – so bright and sunny – and the children put so much effort into the faces. Such great work for Grade 1 children. They were all very proud of their ROY G BIV – and that they had figured out his secret when lots of the Art Show visitors could not!!!

Since the Art Show I have been told there is a fabulous children’s story book called ROY G BIV. I’ll have to find it and add it to my list of resource purchases for 2014!

As mentioned in previous posts, the Grade 2 children were inspired by the work of Queensland artist Dave Behrens. We looked at his website on the projection screen and even watched a video of him in his workshop.

The children were itching to get started after looking at the amazing squiggles, lines and symbols that go together to make Dave Behrens amazing paintings.

We started off small with each child decorating a rectangle to add to a whole grade piece of work.

They then chose a template to trace from a heart, a circle or a person. Some children found looking at the whole empty shape daunting so they used rulers to break the space up into sections to fill.

They were so proud of their work when it was finished and they looked terrific displayed together at the Art Show.

These photos are of the hall display I did earlier and the drawings mounted and on display at the Cambridge Primary School Art Show.

I read THE COAT by Julie Hunt to the Grade 1 children as part of celebrating the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week in the Art Room. They were mesmerised by the story and the illustrations, by Ron Brooks, are divine. Ron Brooks illustrated The BUNYIP OF BERKLEY”S CREEK as well as lots of other Australian children’s titles. Thhis book went on to deservedlywin Australian Picture Book of the Year 2013!

After immersing themselves in the story and having a great discussion about the fabulous illustrations we talked a bit about how fantastic it would be to fly through the sky in a magical coat. The children then drew their own head and neck onto a coat shape I provided them with. They could decorate the coat in any way they liked and they were so excited to add some sequins to it as well! Such a simple thing but they just thought it was so special! I love the picture below with the flying ponytail!

The next step was to cut their coat drawing out very carefully, ensuring they didn’t hack off the head or the feet, and put it aside to start the background. Drawing from a bird’s eye (or a person flying in a magical coat) point of view is tricky when you are in Grade 1.

We looked at photos and maps and drawings I found on pinterest and google for inspiration, we talked about what they would see if they flew over their house, or the school, or the MCG (the Melbourne Cricket Ground, an iconic Melbourne institution, where footy and cricket are played, and other events held, in our sports mad Capital city, so it was familiar to most of the children) and most of the children seemed to be able to articulate what they would see and what it would look like when they drew it. I love that you look at the back of his headas he is flying in the drawing below!

I have to admit, when it came to the execution it was really tricky. Some of them started out with a bird’s eye view but then as they found something tricky to draw they would revert to a straight on aspect. Some of them just drew a picture from a straight on, normal view from the start, even if it was very detailed.

But boy, when they GOT IT, wow, they well and truly GOT IT!!!

I am so proud of all their attempts as nearly all the children said they thought they were the best drawings they had ever done!

Posts navigation

Hi, I'm Shell, Welcome to the Back Art Room Blog which is about my Visual Arts program and its place in Primary Visual Arts education in Victoria, Australia. I teach Visual Arts at Cambridge Primary School in Hoppers Crossing so here you will find examples of my students amazing artworks, all sorts of things that happen in and around my art room, as well as my thoughts on Visual Arts education and whatever else I can squeeze in! I want to reflect on my own teaching and learning and interact, learn from and be inspired by others.

Subscribe by Email

Completely spam free, opt out any time.

Please, insert a valid email.

Thank you, your email will be added to the mailing list once you click on the link in the confirmation email.